Information Order

We can apply to the court for an order that the debtor attends before a court official to be examined about his/her/their assets and means.

These applications can be useful but are not common. They are time-consuming because you have to wait for an appointment, which may be given weeks or, normally, months ahead. The information given is of limited use and there may be difficulty serving the debtor. In addition the costs you incur are not recoverable from the debtor.

Who Is Questioned?

• In the case of an individual defendant, you will examine them.
• In the case of a company defendant you can examine any director, the company secretary or any other person in the company who should have a good working knowledge of the company’s financial status.

Style Of Examination

• The examination will normally take place before a court official, in which case it will be reasonably relaxed.
• If you feel the cost is worth it, we can instruct a solicitor or barrister to attend the examination and conduct a more rigorous cross examination. In exceptional cases, the examination can be held before a judge. In this case we would have to arrange someone to attend for you and conduct the examination.
• There is a standard form of questionnaire and the debtor will be asked to bring along the more obvious financial documents, such as payslips etc. If you want additional questions asked, or for the debtor to bring additional documents, we can ask for this in the application.
• If the debtor does not attend, the Court will make a further order against him compelling him to attend and he will be arrested if he does not. Again, we would need to instruct a process server to serve this order.